September 16, 2009

I’m starting to accumulate a backlog of things to write about. Life is too interesting to capture, and yet too interesting to let slip!

Check out the Smarter Work Jam to brainstorm what a smarter organization might look like. The kick-off videocast was good – got to hear from the author of “Wisdom of Crowds”.

Today was the last class in the “Taking the Stage” women’s leadership development program at IBM. The key thing I took away from that session was the importance of being present and sharing your energy. The improv classes I’ve been taking are a surprisingly good complement to that session, as they help me practice being in the moment and making eye contact with, listening to, and responding to people. Next steps for me: continue to take improv classes, work on figuring out more of myself, and share what I’ve learned with people. Oh, and put together tips on remote presence, as I seem to have stumbled across some things that work.

I remembered that I really don’t like traveling because I hate being away from home, making arrangements for transportation, and rearranging schedules. The less travel I do, the better. I’ll just have to get really good at connecting and learning online.

Had a great chat with Martin Cleaver yesterday about entrepreneurship and jobs. He’s currently independent, but is thinking of trying the corporate world again.

Brought my handmade lunch bag to work today. Yay!

Had lunch with someone who wanted to know about the awesome stuff I get to do for work. Yay passing on career advice!

Got a lift from David Ing (one of my mentors). On the way downtown, he shared lots of tips on facilitation.

Last class of Improv 101 was great. We played through the first scenes of an Armando again. Still haven’t made it to the second set of scenes, but that’s okay – maybe in the next series of classes. Annie (our teacher) gave us all feedback. She said I’m good at developing strong characters. To improve, she suggested that I work on creating characters who aren’t endearing, as all the characters I played that day had at least a little bit of niceness about them. (Yes, even when I was playing someone conning someone else…) Given that I don’t actually swear in real life and generally don’t find myself in nasty situations, this could be a challenge, but it’s all for fun.

First class of Improv 201 was great. Am starting to get the hang of the Threads game, helped with lots of eye contact. Our instructor (Matt) likes doing a lot of side-coaching, tweaking the scene while we’re playing. I like that because the scaffolding helps us learn and we get to explore different ways of doing things.

The zucchini is taking over the backyard. Next year, I’m going to plant it towards the back, where the wild things are. ;)

Biking is lots of fun and a great way to get around. Next week, I’ll try biking to work.

I am looking forward to sleeping in this weekend, and to fleshing out these quick points.